EnglishWhen we started our Facebook page we had no idea that we would get som many followers. We have just passed 5000 and we must celebrate with some awesome historical textiles.

We present to you out favorite part of textiles- selvages. When you find them in an old fabric,
they give really important information about that fabric. They tell us what thread is warp and what is weft. The basic of all weaving!

We therefor present to you a variation of selvages. Hope you like them as much as we do! And thank you for following us ❤
/Amica and Maria

All pictures Historical Textiles. CC-By
If sharing please give us cred for the pictures. Thank you!

The stripe
The stripe is made up of three colours. Dark yellowish brown, red, yellowish and dark yellowish brown. The stripe is relatively rough. In total it consists of 26 threads which together measures 1.9 cm. Thereafter a plain weave for 6,2 cm before the new stripe starts again.
6 tr. dark yellowish brown
8 tr. red
6 tr. yellowish
6 tr. dark yellowish brown

Comment
The fragment is slightly fulled on one side. The fragment comes from the city material of the medieval town Lödöse. It is not dated closer than that, but a comparison with other similar findings place the fabric around the 1300s.
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Amica and Maria

Historical textiles meet textile historian Ingela Wahlberg at Victorian& Albert museum in London to see the exhibition Opus Anglicanum together. Ingela have been guiding us around the exhibition all day and we are, and five hours later, still here.

Opus Anglicanum is a group of embroidery produced in England during the middle ages. Typical for the style is for liturgical use and shows biblical scenes, saints, bishops, scrolls, heraldic beasts and much more. Materials used is floss silk, metal threads (both gold and silver), sometimes highlighting with tiny (!!) fresh water pearls. Embroidered on silk, compound twill, velvet or linen. If they are embroidered on linen the whole surface is covered with stitches. If they today show some linen, it is because the silk stitches have worn off. The most common techniques are underside couching and split stitch.

We will come back to the items exhibit here and give you a full report. The exhibition have got a photo restriction so we can’t share any photos from it.

The exhibition will be open until 5 February 2017 and we STRONGLY recommend you to go and se it. Last time some of these items were exhibit was in 1963 and before that 1905. So… it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity!

Wool weave in three-shaft twill, with tri-colored stripe in plain weave, with loose threads.
The fragment has two stripes, and between them are five centimeters of three shaft twill weave woven in warp effect. The stripes are loosely beaten.

The stripeThe stripe is made up of three colors. Today, these are dark brown, yellow-green and burgundy. The threads of the three colors of the stripe are S-spun, fluffy/rich and has a somewhat looser twist than the warp.
The stripe is 2 cm wide and consists of a total of 16 threads.
6 threads dark brown, 4 threads yellow-green and 6 threads burgundy .

The stripe is woven in plain weave. This means that since the basic fabric is woven in three- shaft twill, one in three threads is released and floats on the back of the fabric. This results in the warp becoming sparser in the stripe, allowing for a denser weave, which makes more of the color visible, and in addition yields a different surface structure of the stripe.

The fabric is lightly fulled, and one side is very hairy and felted. Today, the fragment is brown. The fragment comes from the city material of the medieval town Lödöse. It is not dated closer than that, but a comparison with other similar findings place the fabric around the 1300s.

EnglishA description of a Madonna sculpture from the Edshult church, Småland, Sweden. Dated to 1300-1350.

The old medieval church at Edshult was built in the 1300s or, possibly as early as the 1200s. It was a three-aisled wooden church, originally serving as a farm church to a manor in Edshult. Inside were rich paintings from the second half of the 14th century. About 100 metres southwest of the church green are the remnants of a defense tower. The new church at Edshult was built in 1836-1838. Shortly after the opening of the new church, the old one was demolished, and both the building materials and inventory was auctioned off. The pulpit, altar rails, oil paintings and sculptures were sold within the district. Among several other items was a Madonna sculpture that belonged to the church. A few years after the demolition, Nils Månsson Mandelgren came to Edshult. He had been sent by the Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities to document the churches. He managed to trace some of the objects from the old church. Some of the planks with church interior paintings dating from the first half of the 14th century had been used to make stalls in the church stables and in the poorhouse woodshed, while the pulpit was used for a chicken coop and doghouse. The altar rails were used to make a pig pen. Mandelgren copied some of the painted planks and eventually published a magnificent work, Monuments Scandinaves du Moyen Age. Although the church is no longer there, it is possible to get an idea of what the paintings looked like, with the aid of Mandelgren’s sketches, made on the spot.

In the summer of 1912, Andreas Lindblom came in search of objects preserved from theEdshult church. He was able to locate fourteen painted planks in the poorhouse woodshed, which were all sent to the Swedish History Museum. Lindblom knew that the Madonna from the church that had been auctioned away had been sold to a farmer, who had subsequently sold it to another farmer named Birger, for a pint of brandy. By asking his way from farm to farm, Lindblom finally found out who had the Madonna sculpture in their possession: a farmer in the village of Ärnaberg. He writes: “Fredrik Samuelsson (the owner of the farm) told his daughter to fetch the sculpture. The girl took the Mother of God resolutely in her arms and carried her down the stairs. – Now, the beautiful Madonna from Edshult is one of the ornaments of the Swedish History Museum.”

Since 1912, the Madonna of the Edshult church is preserved within the collections of the Swedish History Museum. She is on display on the 2nd floor.

The sculpture measures 95 cm.
The Madonna is sitting on a bench that is painted in white, red, orange, green and black. The black is probably meant to show that the side panels of the pallet are perforated.

English
The Madonna is crowned, but very little remains of the crown. She wears a cloak over her shoulders. Jesus sits on her left knee. She holds her left arm around the child’s back and her hand is resting on his shoulders. The Madonna did just or is about to nurse the baby, and her breast is resting in her right hand. Jesus grasps her right forearm with his left hand, his right hand gripping her bare breast. His bare feet are peeking out from under his gown. Under the Madonna’s feet lies a dragon. The dragon is painted in pink and red, with pink being the main colour and red for the dragon’s scales. Both the Madonna and Jesus have got light, golden curly hair.

EnglishCloak of the Madonna: The mantle is painted gold on the outside and the inside is bright red. It shows no trace of stripes or decorations, and also lacks a closing device.Gown of the Madonna:Fabric. Her skirt is blue with stark gold-colored flowers. The flowers are reminiscent of carnations in style. These flowers are regularly spaced over the garment.Model: The kirtle is full-length and has no front opening. The cut is loose-fitting over her upper body and folds at the waist where the belt sits. The sleeves are narrow at the forearm and a little looser over the upper arm. The kirtle is full-length and pools over the Madonna’s feet, which gives the impression of generous width at the bottom of the garment.Neckline. The neckline is decorated with a golden band. The band has a distinct relief pattern with dots. The band is fragmentary at the neck and the central part of it is missing. The sculpture shows a carved decoration in a V-pattern at the neck, which follows the angle of the band. The neckline of her kirtle could possibly have had an original V-cut, and the band would have followed this form. The neckline of the Madonna could possibly hint at a rounding of the neckline under the blue kirtle, which would indicate another garment worn underneath. It is impossible to know what this might actually have looked like.Sleeves. The sleeves are full-length. Her kirtle has a plain gold band at the wrist. The band is only visible on the Madonna’s left arm, since the right sleeve has no colour left. It is not possible to anything about the width of the band, as the cloak extends over the sleeve and covers it.Bottom hem. The kirtle has a band at the bottom edge of the hem of the skirt. This band is blue with gold patterns. The patterns are set in a V-shape and in each V there is a figure, resembling French lilies in shape.The Madonna’s belt:Belt. The Madonna wears a black belt around her waist. The belt has decorations shaped like small golden flowers. The flowers are set in stark relief. Between the flowers is a lower, golden relief in the shape of a French lily. The flowers are possibly metal, since they have an iron rivet in the middle. No belt buckle is visible, nor is the end of the belt strap.The Madonna’s veil:Veil. The veil lies on top of the Madonna’s head, beginning high up on the forehead, and is visible, with a slight edge, under the crown. It falls in soft folds around her face, and her hair is hanging unbound under the veil on both sides. The veil is resting on her shoulders and falls down along her back, and seems to end mid-shoulder. The shape of the veil seems to be round or oval. It is white, with two patterned stripes in red and gold at the bottom of the veil and another stripe a little bit higher up. The veil has lost much of its color and the inside on the right side is completely stripped of paint. On the Madonna’s left side you can see the inside of the veil, completely white. On the outside left, the veil is striped.

EnglishJesus’ kirtle:Model. The kirtle is full-length and lacks front opening. The model is loose-fitting. The sleeves are full-length, tight at the underarm and a little puffy about the upper arm. The kirtle is full length and falls out over Jesus’ feet, giving the impression of generous width at the bottom of the garment.Fabric. The fabric is bright red with gold-colored flowers. The flowers are a bit smaller than those on the Madonna’s kirtle – in their design, they resemble stylized French lilies, and they are regularly placed over the fabric.Neckline. The neckline has a wide band of gold. The neckline is round and it is not possible to see if Jesus wears another garment under the kirtle.Sleeve. The upper sleeves are puffy and after the elbow become immediately tight down to the wrist. On the outside of the left forearm, all the paint is gone. The sculpture exhibits traces of a series of marks in the wood, which could indicate that there were once buttons on the sleeve. The right sleeve has a wide golden band at the wrist. This arm is angled, so that no buttons are visible.Bottom hem. The kirtel has a gold ribbon at the bottom of the kirtle hem.

EnglishComments on the clothes.The cloak seems to be lined. It has an outer golden yellow fabric and a red lining. You cannot really see what kind of materials there are meant to be in the mantle, or what kind of materials the artist had in mind when creating the sculpture. The fabric in the kirtles of both the Madonna and Jesus looks like a woven pattern, where the pattern repets itself in reports. There are many examples of silks with brooches in metal thread, contemporary with the sculpture and with the same elements and patterns, although the most common patterns are full-area coverage ones. Other sculptures with patterned clothing, from the same period, often exhibit simplified pattern forms on their clothes, cfr here. The sleeve of Jesus’ kirtle exhibits some marks. These marks are as accurate as a row of buttons would have been. There are contemporary pictures showing clothes with buttons on the same type of garments, and in the same place, as on Jesus’ kirtle. The plain gold bands on the kirtles could be tablet woven bands made out of yellow silk. Possibly, they could be silk fabric sewn onto the garments. Silk fabrics, sewn onto garments, have been found in both London and Tartu; however, they are narrow, and placed on the inside of the garment. The band at the Madonna’s bottom hem could possibly be a tablet woven band in blue silk with brooched elements in gold. This particular type of band is common during this period. The most common occurrence seems to be belts, but there are ecclesiastical garments with applied, pattern-woven bands of this particular kind. Of all the garments, the veil is the one that stands out. It is, in fact, a patterned veil. These are highly unusual for the 14th century, but a few are in evidence, here and here. The exciting thing about this particular veil is that it is striped on the outside – but not on the inside. Which would mean that the stripes are in effect applied, sewn onto, the white veil – perhaps this could be a band, possibly woven in silk. The sculpture doesn’t tell us what kind of fabric the artist had in mind. The Madonna belt could be made of leather, with flower-shaped mounts, of gilded metal. The French liliy relief could be a flatter mount or a relief pattern stamped directly ontp the leather, and then gold plated.

Are these garments representative of the first half of the 14th century? Possibly, for the very richest people.